


Runaway

by Transposable_Element



Category: Earthsea - Ursula K. Le Guin
Genre: Book: The Tombs of Atuan, Freedom, Gen, Running Away, Travelers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-15
Updated: 2017-12-17
Packaged: 2019-02-14 20:14:07
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 6,535
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13015305
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Transposable_Element/pseuds/Transposable_Element
Summary: What happened to Penthe after the earthquake at the Place of the Tombs.





	1. Running around

**Author's Note:**

  * For [penintime](https://archiveofourown.org/users/penintime/gifts).



> "I hope the other buildings didn't fall. It was hard to see, there was so much dust. Surely all the temples and houses didn't fall, the Big House where all the girls sleep."
> 
> "I think not. It was the Tombs that devoured themselves. I saw a gold roof of some temple as we turned away; it still stood. And there were figures down the hill, people running."
> 
> \-- _The Tombs of Atuan_

Penthe woke to the cries of the other women in the dormitory. Always a deep sleeper, she roused slowly and, realizing belatedly that the room was rocking like a boat in a gale, she untangled herself from her blanket and ran to the door, down the stairs, and out of the Big House into the courtyard. She was one of the last to leave. It was just before dawn.

People were screaming “Earthquake!” —as though that were not obvious. Women and girls were milling around the courtyard, pale and shivering in their shifts, or with blankets clutched about them. Some were frantically searching for their friends. Some had fallen to their knees in prayer ( _show-offs_ , thought Penthe). The eunuchs were gathering outside their dormitory. From the other side of the wall came the deeper voices of the guards.

After what seemed like a very long time but was probably only a minute or so, Penthe felt the shaking of the earth begin to subside, and gradually the yelling settled into a nervous chatter of silly but necessary utterances such as “Is it over?” “Did you feel that?” and “I’m shaking. Are you shaking? Feel my arm, I’m trembling!”

“Girls, over here!” called Vareth, the novice mistress. She began doing a head count of her charges.

“Where is Kossil?” somebody asked, and then came a gabble of anxious voices: “Hasn’t anybody seen her?” “Her room is right on the ground floor, she must have made it out.” “Well, I’m not going to look for her!” “She’s probably on her way.”

Mebbeth, the senior priestess of the Godking after Kossil, began gathering all the consecrated postulants and priestesses. She didn’t bother doing a head count, but asked the women if anybody they knew was missing. Penthe looked around, but couldn’t think of anybody besides Kossil who ought to be there and wasn’t.

“Hi! Priestess!” came a man’s voice. The captain of the guard was standing at the gate. Even in the midst of this emergency he was careful not to set foot within the precinct of the Place without permission. “Is everybody accounted for?”

“No!” called Mebbeth. And then, walking rapidly toward him, “If you can spare some men—” Her voice dwindled as she approached him, until they stood facing each other on either side of the gate, conferring in whispers.

In the grey pre-dawn light Penthe thought the damage didn’t look too bad. Near the courtyard of the Big House, the temple of the God Brothers stood serenely intact, as far as she could see. Perhaps the earthquake hadn’t been as severe as they had all thought. But then she turned and looked up the hill. Blocks of stone had fallen from the façade of the Godking’s temple, and at the end of its portico one of the massive cedar pillars was listing to the side, threatening the stability of the roof. Of the Hall of the Throne, all Penthe could see was a mass of rubble.

Mebbeth came back from her conversation with the guard. “No sign of Kossil yet? You, Arkke, go to Kossil’s rooms at the back of the temple, see what’s become of her.” She paused, and then said grimly, “And nobody’s seen Arha? I’ll check the Small House.”

 

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> On the presence of male guards at the Place: In _The Other Wind_ Tenar, looking back on her past, thinks "Only women and eunuchs had lived at the Place of the Tombs," but in _The Tombs of Atuan_ , there are clearly male guards living just outside the wall. Their quarters are on the map, and in the scene in which Arha and Penthe hide from Manan, Arha says, "slide down partway on the men's side." The men are even allowed inside the Place on some occasions: "on certain very holy festivals the guards, and their drummers and players of horn, would attend the procession of the priestesses; but they did not enter the portals of the temples. No other men set foot upon the inner ground of the Place." So it does seem likely that in a severe emergency, especially one that might call for physical strength, men would be allowed into the Place.


	2. Cleaning up

By noon, they knew that there were only a few people missing: Kossil, Arha, and the eunuchs Duby, Uhato, and Manan. Everybody else—priestess, novice, eunuch, guard, or slave—was accounted for. One novice had broken both ankles jumping out a window, and a guard had crushed his thumb while searching through the rubble of the Hall of the Throne. Otherwise, the worst injuries were sprains and bruises.

Most of the damage seemed to be concentrated on the western side of the Place: The Tombs, the Hall of the Throne, the Small House, and, to a lesser degree, the temple of the Godking. The Big House, where most of the women lived and worked, was more or less intact, except for some damage to the kitchens and cellar. The outbuildings and everything on the other side of the wall, where the guards and slaves lived, had suffered nothing worse than some broken crockery.

It was peculiar, the specificity of the damage. When she could spare a moment to think about it, Penthe wondered whether the earthquake had anything to do with the altercation that many of them had witnessed two days earlier, which had ended with Arha cursing Kossil. Surely it was significant that both high priestesses were missing. But for the most part Penthe, like everybody else, was too busy to think about it.

The chimneys of the Big House kitchens had fallen, and Irian, the lay sister in charge of the kitchens, said that using the fireplaces or ovens before the chimneys could be rebuilt might set the roof on fire. To avoid this, they set up a temporary kitchen outdoors and brought up provisions from the cellar. Penthe was set to collecting bedding and helping set up camp in the plaza, because nobody wanted to sleep inside for fear of another earthquake. Meanwhile, the guards were searching through the wreckage of the Hall of Thrones. Part of the roof of the Small House had fallen in, but the guards had cleared away the rubble by the end of the first day and found no bodies there. The listing pillar of the Godking's temple needed to be hauled into alignment and braced, and would eventually need to be replaced, but otherwise the damage to the temple seemed to be mostly cosmetic.

The following days were chaos. Nobody knew of a time since the building of the Godking’s temple when all three high priestesses had been missing at the same time. Thar's replacement was due to arrive at the Place within a month, but in the meantime, in Kossil’s absence Mebbeth was the senior priestess of the Place. She was not much of a leader and resented the demands on her. Discipline deteriorated.

There was a lot of work to do, surveying the damage and cleaning up. Despite the lack of structural damage in the Big House and the temple of the God Brothers, nearly everything that had been on a shelf or in a cabinet had fallen, and there was a lot of breakage. Some of the milch goats had escaped their enclosure and had to be recaptured. All of the food in the cellars had to be inventoried, and any damaged jars, boxes, or barrels must be repaired or replaced and then repacked. Penthe volunteered to help with this job, but Mebbeth, who knew her well, assigned Penthe to mixing mortar for the eunuchs who were repairing the cracked cistern. 

The second day after the earthquake, Kossil's body was found in the wreckage of the Hall of the Throne. There was little stir over this: Kossil was not beloved, and by that time everybody was half expecting it. Offerings were burned for her, but she was pinned under a large beam and it would take some time to dig her out. The bodies of Duby and Uhato were found nearby later the same day.

Arha and Manan still had not been found, but nobody in the Place held out much hope that they were alive.

Penthe thought sadly of Arha, who had been cold and imperious, but who had always seemed to Penthe like a bird in a cage or an animal in a trap. A few times they had laughed together, and for a moment Arha had seemed almost like an ordinary girl. Penthe had sometimes wondered whether she had truly been Eaten, or whether something of her own soul remained. Now nobody knew whether Arha was still alive, buried somewhere in the wreckage, or, if dead, when she had died. Without that knowledge, there could be no search for her next incarnation. And nearly all of the knowledge of the service of the Nameless Ones had died with the three priestesses. It seemed that the Nameless Ones had decided that they no longer needed a priestess. Penthe was secretly glad about this: at least no other little girl would be torn from her family and brought to this Place to be devoured.

In general, Penthe rather enjoyed the confusion. It was easy to slip away quietly for an hour or two. Meals were sporadic, but the kitchen handed out dried apples and figs at midday. And the break from routine was enlivening. Strangest of all, there were men all over the Place, for they were needed for the heavy work of lifting and searching and bracing. Penthe didn’t know any of them by name: normally novices and priestesses had little to no contact with the guards, and every spring and autumn new guards were brought in and old guards sent home, to discourage familiarity. But it was exciting just to see and hear these big, loud-voiced creatures during the day, walking around the Place as though they belonged there.

On the third day after the earthquake, Penthe spent the afternoon in the temple of the Godking with a senior priestess, Arben, sorting through ruined statuary and broken bottles of sacred oils and unguents.

“Ach! Look at this mess!” said Arben, opening the door to a storeroom whose floor was a jumble of sticky shards of glass and pottery. “Penthe, go get me a broom, or a rake!”

Penthe, glad to take a break, ambled off toward the tool shed behind the Big House. The door was open, and she went in.

There was a man there, rummaging among the tools. It was dim, but weak sunlight sifted through a high window.

“Oh,” said Penthe weakly. He was a guard, of course.

The man looked up at her good-naturedly. “What are you looking for, blossom?” he asked.

_Blossom? What did he mean by that?_

“I need a rake,” she said.

The man glanced around and saw where she was pointing. To get to it, she would have to edge past him in the narrow space. After a moment of awkward silence, the man went over to the rake, which was hung up on the wall, and took it down.

While he was turned away from her, Penthe stole a look at him. He was neither young nor old, neither tall nor short, neither fat nor thin, neither dark nor fair. His hair was light brown, and he had a short beard.

He approached with the rake and held it out to her. This was the closest she had been to a man since her parents had taken her to the temple all those years ago. She smiled as she took the rake, and he smiled in response.

“You don’t belong here, blossom,” he said.

“What do you mean?” she asked, startled. _She_ knew she didn’t belong here; she had known it for many years, for as long as she had been here. She had known it even _before_ she came here. But how did this man know?

He reached out and slowly gathered her closer. Penthe was tall, so he didn’t have to bend to kiss her. She ought to have been afraid, but he was holding her loosely, and she didn’t feel trapped. She could feel her body waking up in the same way that it sometimes did when she lay in bed after lights out and made up stories in her head about a handsome prince or dashing brigand rescuing her from the Place.

Penthe wasn’t sure how long the kiss lasted, but when it ended the man stepped back, putting his hands on her shoulders to hold her at arm's length, and took a deep breath. “You’d better go,” he said, sounding regretful.

Penthe had dropped the rake, and now she bent down to pick it up. Her face was hot, and she knew that it must be pink. She straightened up and started to wipe her mouth with the back of her hand, then jerked her hand back, thinking perhaps that would be rude. She lifted the rake in a kind of salute. “Thanks,” she said. “For the rake,” she added. The man smiled a wide smile, and Penthe left without another word and hurried back to the temple, one hand on her hot cheek. 

Years later, when she had learned more about men, Penthe realized that she had been fortunate that this man had been so gentle with her. She wished she had asked his name.

That night Penthe lay awake. Many of the girls and women had returned to the dormitories, but some, including Penthe, preferred to sleep outdoors, even though it was cold. Kossil would never have stood for such a thing, Penthe knew. If she had been alive and in charge, everybody would have been back in the dormitories the night after the earthquake. But Mebbeth allowed the girls to sleep outside, even having braziers lit to help keep them warm, so Penthe pulled an extra pair of wool socks over her feet and wrapped herself in a thick blanket, and was comfortable enough.

 _I don’t belong here_ , she thought. Even after being consecrated, she had never fully given herself up to her fate. But, though she still dreamed of escape, it was only in the stories she told herself. To actually leave this Place seemed impossible.

She began to realize that now might be her first and only real opportunity to get away from the Place. Ordinarily, if she was missing from the weaving room or the temple, someone would come looking for her right away. But at the moment everybody was running around trying to get things in order, so if she was missing they would just assume that she had been called away to another task. The only times when she might be missed were first thing in the morning, when people lined up for the morning meal (and a skimpy meal it was), and just at sunset, when the evening meal was served out and the Nine Chants recited. The midday meal, if there was one, was served in the plaza, and people came to get it whenever they had a moment to eat. Missing the morning meal would look very suspicious, but if she missed the evening meal, people wouldn’t necessarily conclude right away that she had run away. They would probably think that she had lain down somewhere quiet for a nap and overslept dinner—as she had done before, more than once. Later on, the women in the dormitory would assume that she was still sleeping outside, and those sleeping outside would think that she had gone back to sleeping in the dormitory.

At some point somebody would realize that she had run away; but then, would anybody come after her? Would they be able to track which way she had gone? Would they think it worthwhile to spare guards from the urgent tasks of rebuilding and repair to chase down one girl?

Nothing was well-guarded: she had already cached some food for emergencies. It would be easy to pilfer most of what she needed, and there were plenty of unattended corners to hide it until she was ready to go.

She had friends here, some of whom were as unhappy as she was. Should she try to convince them to come with her? But then, a group of girls, or even a pair, would be more apt to trigger a pursuit. She briefly imagined finding the man who had kissed her and convincing him to run away with her. But even as she imagined it, she knew that it was a foolish idea. Even asking him would be too much of a risk, and besides, she knew nothing of him, not even his name. It was best to go alone.

When would she leave? What would she take with her? Where would she go? And what would she do when she got there?

The consequences of being caught didn’t bear thinking about, so she tried not to think about them.

By morning, she had a plan.


	3. Getting away

The plan, in the end, was simple: just walk away. At first it went exactly as Penthe had hoped. She left the Place soon after the morning meal. Carrying her bundle, she walked through the gate to the men's side quite brazenly, then went down to the river. She had a story all prepared, to explain why she was going to the river, but nobody stopped her or even seemed to notice her. She knew that she had to stay close to the river, both for water and to avoid getting lost, and she had decided to head downstream, southward toward the coast, rather than upstream north and west into the mountains. She had grown up in a fishing village away up on the northern coast of Atuan and had always longed to see the ocean again. Besides, it would be warmer at night down here on the plain than it would be up in the mountains.

In a month's time, the river would be swollen by the snowmelt from the mountains, but now it was low in its bed. Penthe walked in the dry part of the riverbed past a bend in the river where the sloping banks blocked the view from upstream. She continued on to a place where the flow of water widened and ran slowly over a shallow gravel bed. She had passed through here once, years ago, with Mebbeth, who was looking for a new fishing spot. Penthe took off her sandals and socks, hiked up her robe, gritted her teeth, and waded over to the western bank. The water was extremely cold, and by the time she reached the other side her teeth were chattering. But crossing the river might put anybody following her off her track and would keep her away from the villages clustered along the eastern bank. She dried her feet carefully with her wool blanket. And then she walked.

Penthe was lazy, but she could exert herself when she needed to. She continued for a time in the riverbed, but the bank on the west side was growing higher and rockier, and she began to worry that she would not be able to climb out if she needed to. Eventually she found a way up to the top of the bank. There she found a path roughly paralleling the riverbank, winding among thickets of stunted trees. She knew that there was a village on the east bank that people talked of as being about a day’s walk from the Place, and she passed it not long after sundown. The trees and the gathering darkness helped to hide her from the village, and she pushed on to put more distance between herself and the villagers.

But when she stopped to make camp and have what she considered to be a well-deserved rest, she couldn’t make a fire. At the Place the hearth fires were banked at night, but they were never allowed to go out completely. Even after the earthquake, the outdoor cooking fires were lit with coals from the kitchens. Penthe had taken a flint and steel from the temple of the Godking, where they were used to light ceremonial fires, but she had never used the tools herself, only watched others, and had not learned the trick of it; nor had she much experience building a fire. Eventually she gave up. For a while she tried to sleep bundled up on the ground—after all, she had been sleeping outdoors for several nights now—but it was too cold. The dry, packed dirt of the Place had stayed warmer after sundown than the windy plateau above the river, and the braziers and the warmth of the other women’s bodies had helped keep her comfortable more than she had realized.

After a while, she gave up trying to sleep and walked on. The stars were bright overhead, and she could see well enough to follow the path, though she went slowly. Soon after dawn she came to a set of stairs cut into the rock and was able to go down to the river to refill her flask. Then she climbed back up and went on until she found a hollow sheltered by a grove of trees where she could lie down to sleep.

Penthe woke in the afternoon. She had taken enough food to last five or six days, if she ate sparingly; but Penthe hated eating sparingly, and she had, after all, walked for almost a whole day straight! The food was nearly half gone. She sighed and proceeded downriver.

By now she was consumed by worry about what she would do when she came to a town where she might look for work. How would she explain where she came from and why she was traveling alone? Her robe was unadorned and black, obviously the robe of a priestess. It also occurred to her that although the priestesses of the Place might not send guards after her, messengers had been going out in all directions every day since the earthquake, carrying the news and searching out supplies, and they might also be carrying a message to nearby towns asking the magistrates to look for Penthe. She was beginning to think that this escape had been a very bad idea.

And yet, the countryside she was traveling through was already a relief from the sameness of the Place. It was still arid, but there were thickets of trees along the river. Most of them were still bare of leaves, but there were also evergreen scrub oaks with dark green foliage. Birds were few, but Penthe saw a pair of ravens and some little brown birds she didn’t recognize, and near sundown she saw a hawk flying low over the river. In the spring it would probably be quite lovely here.

At nightfall Penthe continued walking, stopping at dawn and again sleeping through the morning of the next day. She woke again in the early afternoon and followed the increasingly rocky path southward. She could think of nothing else to do.

Not long after Penthe started walking, she came to a road. She could see off in the distance where it emerged from the foothills to the west before disappearing among the trees west of the river and re-emerging to follow the river south. She knew that taking the road might be dangerous, but it didn't look like it was heavily traveled. Besides, she was running low on food, and she had no way of getting anything to eat except by begging or working for it, and that meant she needed people. She decided to take the risk. She wrapped her shawl around her to hide the priestess's robe as best she could. The shawl was black, like the robe, but otherwise not much different from the kind of thing a countrywoman might wear.

Penthe had not been on the road for long when she heard the sound of wheels behind her. She had plenty of time to look at the wagon as it approached her, for it was moving slowly. It was pulled by two mules and had a high seat in the front, where an old woman sat next to the middle-aged man holding the reins. The only odd thing Penthe could see about the two people was the woman’s hat: reddish, flat, with a wide brim hung with little tassels. The wagon was like nothing Penthe had ever seen. The harness was dyed or painted red, and the box was covered by a high, red canopy, but the sides of the wagon box were painted blue.

Penthe realized that she was gaping, so she closed her mouth as the wagon drew nearer.

“Want a ride, girlie?” called the old woman. The man beside her started to hush her, but she just gave him an elbow to the ribs and grinned at him.

Penthe hesitated. Accepting a ride obviously wasn’t a safe thing to do. But she was tired, and if she continued walking along this road, she might be caught anyway.

“Yes, thank you!” she called.

The wagon didn’t slow or stop. As it passed her, Penthe saw that the sides were painted with elaborate blue swirls edged with black and red. She jumped up onto a narrow footboard at the back of the wagon, grabbing onto the side of the wagon box. She found herself looking through an opening in the canopy. Several startled faces peered back at her.

“What are _you_?” one of them asked.

“The, the woman up front offered me—ow—a ride,” Penthe stuttered as the wagon jolted on the uneven road.

A girl Penthe’s age or a little younger came up to her. “That’s Oma. I expect she did offer, she just didn’t think you’d accept! Come on, then.” She gave Penthe a hand, and helped her climb over into the wagon.

The interior of the box had benches running along each side, and it was only after Penthe plumped herself down on one of them that she realized that sitting without asking first might be rude. Some light came through the canopy, giving everything a red tinge, but more came from the large opening at the back and a smaller one at the front, behind the driver. The girl who had helped Penthe was up next to it, saying, “Oma, what were you _thinking_?” If the old woman said anything Penthe missed it, but she did hear her laughing.

As Penthe’s eyes adjusted to the dimness, she looked around. There were five people riding in the back of the wagon: Two women, one round and one thin, the girl, and two little boys, all staring at her silently.

The silence was awkward, so Penthe broke it. “Thank you for the ride.”

“We’re on the way to Gullach. Is that where you’re going?” asked the girl.

“Well…” said Penthe, “yes, I suppose. I mean, yes, I am…”

The round woman looked at the thin woman and they seemed to come to a decision. “You’d better tell us what you’re up to, and why a white girl like you would ride with us,” said the round woman.

“White girl?” Penthe asked. She had no idea what they were talking about. They couldn’t mean white-skinned, for as far as she could see their skin was winter-white, like hers. The girl and one of the two boys had yellow hair.

“Oh, we have dirt in our blood, or hadn’t you heard?” said the girl.

"Mene," said the round woman sharply.

"Well, that's what people say about us!" replied the girl.

“I don’t understand,” said Penthe.

“Do you not know what we are? We’re Travelers,” said the round woman.

“Oh,” said Penthe.

Travelers. Most of what Penthe knew about them came from a girl who had been at the Place as a novice a few years back, but who had left without being consecrated. She had said that Travelers never stayed in any place for long. They helped pick crops when extra hands were needed, and they were thieves, and dirty. The novice had come from Hur-at-Hur, so Penthe thought of Travelers as belonging there. She had never heard that there were any here on Atuan.

And now she remembered there was one other thing the novice had told her, with great horror: Travelers didn’t believe in the divinity of the Godking or the God Brothers. They were unbelievers, like the cursed sorcerers to the west.

No wonder they hadn’t expected her to take them up on the offered ride.

Penthe thought for a moment. If these people really were unbelievers, then they wouldn’t fault her for running away from the Place, would they? And they wouldn’t try to make her go back. She doubted that there was any reward for her capture that might tempt them to turn her in.

“I’m running away,” she said slowly.

The two women exchanged another look. "Surakh," said the round woman, putting her hand to her breast. "My man and his mother are up front. My man's sister. My daughter, my son, my sister-son." As she spoke, she gestured toward the thin woman, the girl, and the two boys in turn. "You can learn all their names later," she added.

Penthe put her hand on her breast and said her name. She waited, but it seemed that she would have to say more if they were to trust her. She began telling her story. She hadn't gotten far when the old woman clambered down into the wagon box and said “Start over. I couldn’t hear.” So Penthe began again and told the whole story of her escape, leaving out only the kiss in the tool shed.

When she was finished, there was silence. Penthe untied her bundle and laid down the flint and steel, the thick wool blanket, her extra socks, and the last of her food. She took off her shawl, folded it, and placed it on top of the blanket. "This is all I have. I can weave, and I can cook. I can catch fish with a net or a rod, and I can plant and hoe and pick fruit, and all that. Will you take me with you?"

 

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In _The Tombs of Atuan,_ Tenar uses a flint and steel several times. I thought at first that steel would be incompatible with what we know of Earthsea's technology, but it turns out that steel was made in ancient times. On the other hand, the striker in a "flint and steel" may be made of another type of iron alloy, not necessarily steel. With other alloys it's harder to make a spark than with carbon steel, which is probably why Penthe had so much trouble.


	4. Moving on

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> She felt that she had never seen Penthe before, never looked at her and seen her, round and full of life and juice as one of her golden apples, beautiful to see.
> 
> \-- _The Tombs of Atuan_

“Well,” said the old woman, “we’d better get you something else to wear, girlie.”

And, with no ceremony at all, the Travelers took Penthe in. Surakh pulled a crate from under one of the benches and rummaged in it until she had found an old dark blue skirt and a brown jacket for Penthe to wear. Penthe pulled on the skirt under her robe, finding the drawstring and tying it with fumbling hands, but there was no way to put on the jacket without first taking off her robe, so she turned her back and quickly stripped it off. The Traveler women seemed to find this very funny.

The clothes were worn, and the jacket was too big in the bosom (they were obviously Surakh’s clothes), but Penthe was almost giddy with delight at wearing something other than black wool, something that made her look like an ordinary woman and not a runaway priestess.

The old woman (Penthe never heard her called anything but “Oma,” but eventually she realized that this was a title rather than a name) went back to her seat up front to tell her son what was going on. The girl, Mene, stood with Penthe at the back of the wagon and they watched as the road behind them wound down through a sparsely-wooded valley where the springtime green grass was already starting to grow. They didn’t quite know what to say to each other, but after a while Mene began to sing, and Penthe soon caught the melody and joined in, humming because she didn’t know the words.

At sunset they stopped for the night, driving off the road between trees into a little clearing. Penthe got the idea that they had camped here before. Mene unlatched the back of the wagon and let it down to make a ramp. Then she went back into the wagon to fetch a hat, very much like the one her grandmother wore—reddish brown and flat, with tassels hanging from its wide brim—and put it on before leaving the wagon. Penthe looked out and saw that all the women were now wearing similar hats.

While Mene and the thin woman, Embeth, made a fire, Surakh sat down next to Penthe on the ramp. “If you’re going to look like a Traveler, you’ll have to wear a hat whenever you leave the wagon. You must wear this old hat of Mene’s until we can make a proper one for you.” And she handed Penthe a red-brown cap with a narrow brim to it. This, she later discovered, was what Traveler girls wore until they were grown up enough to wear the wide-brimmed hat.

From the conversation around the fire that evening, Penthe learned that Travelers did almost any work they could get, and often they took the dirty or dangerous jobs that few people would do. They also harvested crops and did other ordinary seasonal work. Surakh’s husband, Varag, sometimes found better-paid work as a carpenter. Oma and Embeth were skilled woodworkers who made beautiful trinkets and toys to sell. Right now they were on the way to the spring market at the town of Gullach.

Two days later, at the market, Surakh traded Penthe's shawl for the materials to make a hat. She sold the steel fire-striker to an iron-monger for a good price. Some of the money immediately went for necessities, and Surakh put the rest away. Penthe didn’t ask about it. The Travelers had promised her food and shelter and protection if she worked alongside them, and to Penthe that was better than money.

They couldn’t sell Penthe’s robe because it was too obviously a priestess’s robe, so Surakh decided to use the cloth to make trousers for Varag. Penthe watched with deep satisfaction as Surakh cut up the last remnant of her old life.

Falling in with the Travelers was fortunate for Penthe. In addition to offering her a way to make a living, they helped her to escape notice of anybody who might be looking for her, for most of the people they met would not have anything to do with Travelers except at need. There were only a few Traveler families in Atuan, all having migrated from Hur-at-Hur within the last hundred years. 

And the Travelers were very good company: quiet, but cheerful, given to sarcastic humor, quick to embrace good fortune and shrug off bad.

Living as a Traveler was hard work, but so much better than life at the Place that Penthe didn’t really mind. For the first time she could remember, she enjoyed working (some kinds of work, anyway) and didn't try to avoid it.

Long afterward, Penthe wondered whether the Travelers would have taken in just any runaway and decided they probably wouldn’t have. Since Penthe had escaped from the temple of the hated Godking, they saw helping her as a sacred duty. They gave her refuge when she needed it most.

Over the next half year they slowly traveled downriver to the south coast of Atuan, and then along the coast around the southwestern end of the island and finally north into the mountains.

In the coastal town of Tenacsil, the Travelers joined in hauling in the huge nets filled with the sardines that schooled along that stretch of the coastline every spring.

On a farm just outside that town, Surakh washed and laid out the body of the landowner’s grandmother. Varag built the coffin and dug the grave, while Embeth carved the wooden grave marker. They all stood by the grave as Varag and Surakh lowered the coffin into it. 

In a village near Cloud Cape, a rowdy group of young men and boys chased Mene and Penthe until a woman surged out of her front door and yelled, “Leave those girls alone!” But when they tried to thank her, the woman spat at them and made a sign to avert evil.

In Gar, Penthe joined Mene and Embeth as they sang in the marketplace while the two little boys went among the crowd passing the hat for coins.

As they were heading up into the mountains north of Gar for the apple harvest, they fell in with another Traveler family. It seemed that the two families met every summer to work in the orchards. Mene, who had been very friendly up until now, suddenly seemed keen to put a distance between herself and Penthe, and Penthe understood why: there was a young man belonging to the other Traveler family, and Mene had her eye on him. Perhaps she was even worried that Penthe would angle for the youth herself. But Penthe had no interest in coming between them, and even if she had, it would have been a poor way to repay the Travelers' kindness to her.

Until then, Penthe had seen no need to strike out on her own, but this small drama made her begin to think more about her own future. Perhaps it was time to stop drifting with the current. That evening, as though she knew what was on Penthe's mind, Surakh asked her if she was planning to stay with the Travelers for good.

“I don’t know,” said Penthe, truthfully.

“You could find work in a big town. You could save money for passage to Karego-At. You might marry a farmer or a craftsman.”

“But how would I explain where I came from, and what I’ve been doing until now?”

“We could make up a good story for you. No need to decide now. Think about it. After the apple harvest we go on to Tenacbah. A good place for you to find work. It's not that I want you to leave us, but you're not a Traveler born, and you might be happier settling somewhere.”

“All right,” said Penthe. It was suppertime, and the other women were huddled around the cook fire. Surakh got up and spoke to her husband, and then the two of them went off together into the dark orchard to be alone for a while. Mene had gone to visit the other Traveler family. The two boys were crouched near the fire, playing some sort of game with sticks and stones, while Embeth and Oma cooked supper. Penthe sat in the wagon under the canopy. After Surakh and Varag and Mene came back they would all eat together, and then they would roll up in blankets and sleep in the wagon.

It was so green here, and the air smelled so fresh. The arid Place was becoming a dusty memory. Penthe remembered how her father had once told her that the western mountains caught all the rain before it got to the plains.

They were not far from the fishing village where she had grown up. She thought it was probably somewhere northeast of here. But she had long ago decided not to try to see her parents. She barely remembered them, and although she understood why they had sent her into the service of the Godking, she could not forgive them for it. She was less fearful now of being discovered, but it still seemed better not to attract the attention of anybody who would recognize her and try to send her back. 

Penthe held the red hat on her lap, the hat the marked her to all eyes as a Traveler. Perhaps it was time to put it away, to resume the life that she might have led if her father and mother had not been too poor to keep her, the life of an ordinary Kargish woman. There was Tenacbah, a big city where she could work and make a new life where nobody knew her; there were bigger cities still, in Karego-At. There was even the cursed west, which might not be as cursed as everybody said. 

But there was no need to decide tonight. She would wait until after the apple harvest.

 

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm not sure where Penthe will go after the apple harvest, or what she will do, but I think she's going to have a long, mostly-happy life. Sometime soon she may hear of Tenar of the Ring and put two and two together. By the time of _The Other Wind_ , the story of Tenar bringing the Ring to the Inner Lands seems to be common knowledge in Kargad.
> 
> The Travelers are my invention. They are not based on any particular ethnic group, but I have obviously modeled them partly on the itinerant laborers in our world who are both despised and romanticized by the people among whom they live. Some of the inspiration for them comes from the hints about life in Hur-at-Hur in _The Other Wind_ , in which Hur-at-Hur is portrayed as a place on the edge of Kargish society, where workship of the Godking is less entrenched. The Travelers' hat is a version of the veiled hat worn by Princess Seserakh. The princess's attendants are described as wearing shorter veils; for Traveler women, who are of the very lowest status, the veil is represented only by a row of tassels.


End file.
